Here’s What Anime May Have Looked Like in Ancient Thailand

As the popularity of Japanese anime has spread around the world, many foreign artists have paid tribute to the genre by drawing characters from popular anime series in the style of their own country’s animation.

Sometime this turns out really cool, like the cast of One Piece reimagined Disney-style. But for art styles that aren’t as easily adaptable as Disney, such cultural crossovers can get a little bizarre.

The images below were shared on a Thai message board and show anime characters drawn in the style of traditional Thai paintings.

Traditional Thai art is heavily grounded in Buddhism, with most paintings illustrating stories of Buddha or depicting scenes of the afterlife. As a result, most of the anime characters in these images look like Buddhist deities. Have a look for yourself: